Posted by Dave Bull at 2:56 PM, November 23, 2013 [Permalink]

I made a quick trip downtown last week, visiting a few places: a printer doing some work for Mokuhankan, the Kappabashi restaurant supply street, the back streets around Sensoji temple in Asakusa, and the small shop of one of our tool suppliers ... I learned some very interesting things at all of those places, some of which will have major ramifications for our future.

But ... but? Restaurant supply street?

Sure! Perhaps you remember reading my 'vision' for the future of our business, the 'Mokuhankan in the Year 201x' piece that I posted a couple of years back? In the final section of the piece, I described the pleasant little café that we will have on the premises ...

Well, regular readers who know my habits - pushing forward little by little on as many fronts as possible - might be tempted to put those two things together. Would they be right? Here's a photo of the unit that I found at Kappabashi, and which was delivered to us yesterday afternoon, now installed in my kitchen, ready for its first test later this week:

 

No prizes to those who can guess what this is really for!

As for the other visits, and the other interesting things I learned ... they will have to wait a bit; I have to get down to the work bench ... there is a ton of carving waiting for me ... :-)

Following comment posted by: Marc Kahn on November 24, 2013 12:38 AM

It looks like a stainless steel sizing application workspace, not to mention a very nice kitchen sink.

Following comment posted by: Dave on November 24, 2013 12:58 AM

Yes, for sizing of course. The café preparation is still quite some ways down the road!

This unit has two longish trays which sit over a bath of heated water - just perfect for keeping the size warm. The little 'bucket' I made a couple of years ago was 'OK' for this job, but it's time to get a bit more professional with this. When I found this unit in the restaurant/hotel supply shop, it had a series of smaller trays on top, for warming different kinds of soup I guess, but I got them to switch those out for these two long ones.

The sink itself has been there all the time, but I guess you probably don't recognize it Marc. When you visited it was probably buried under stacks of junk and coated with grime. We've had a giant cleanup here the past couple of weeks; with no Chibi Heroes to send out this month, Ishigami-san - our Chibi packing lady - volunteered to be reassigned to 'cleaning lady' status for the month. And that's about how long it's taking her to blow through the place getting it all ship-shape!